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Magpiebard

evilsciencechick - just finished a batch using sunflowerseed butter and pumpkin seeds in place of the peanuts & peanutbutter (I've got allergies myself, thankfully not to peanuts... but I also have a pantry full of oddball ingredients so I figured why not try the sub?) and it works just fine - that is, if you decide you want an allergy-safe version that is healthier then the (admittedly seriously tasty!) option of the biscoff spread.

As my kitchen is currently in pieces around me (no oven, no stove, just an electric skillet for the next 7 days), until I can make it rise like a phoenix from the ashes... this is the perfect quick, moderately healthy, and very much needed snack to fuel the renovation! Thanks so much, it looks great.

As amazing as this looks, I'm already looking at the recipe and thinking "Huh... ya know... it COULD be taken ~THIS~ way instead" and grinning like an idiot. The real question I must now struggle with is - do I experiment and use the freshly made just yesterday Dulce de Leche (at the time, no clue why I felt the urge to pop 3 cans of condensed milk into the crockpot and crank these beauties out, it now seems fated) to make a Caramel/Blood Orange Pie OR do I use the other can I fiddled with and instead use the can of dark chocolate condensed milk for Chocolate/Blood Orange Pie? OR.... do I find excuses to visit friends tomorrow and make both? (Because as great as these look, I think my husband and I would get sick as dogs if we ate two whole pies, as rich as these look, on our own!) Any votes to be given?

I have to confess, with that much tweaking seemingly required in the only recipe you decided to try out of the book... this sounds like a cookbook that isn't really worth picking up. Too sweet, not seasoned, the wrong tools/method of mixing, and the base is made out of something you preferred to completely subout and to rewrite. Why bother with the cookbook at? I had this on my Amazon wishlist, but I think I'll delete it and simply wait until YOU get a GF cookbook written, as it sounds like you would be the better bet to hand my $20 really.

I might be over 25, but sorry, no, I'm not going with the "Just Split it Evenly" approach. I've had way too many bad experiences with coworkers or acquaintances who demand we go that route - who get twice what my meal costs in booze alone, get three appetizers EACH because "they just want a variety, and hey, you can have a taste if you want it, so it's for all of us" (which is no favor - I've got allergies, and I'm not able to eat any of it), the most expensive thing on the menu "because they deserve to live a little", and then get dessert! Toss on the few TRULY insane folks who then order doubles on everything so they can have lunch the next day? Um... no. Splitting the menu and expecting me to pay 3 & 4X my own meal's cost for the far from pleasure of their company... I just ask the waiter at the start to give me (and my husband) a separate check. And to prevent that from being too insane of a hassle for a harried waitstaff to manage? I tend to give them the tip AHEAD of the meal when I ask for a separate check to be started. I usually have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to spend - so I just hand them what I figure will be a 25% tip on what I'm spending, in cash, at the start.... and I never have to deal with the insanity that seems to occur every time a large group decides to eat together. (As an added spiff... I seem to also get more refills of drinks, my meal tends to come a bit quicker, questions because of my allergies get met with a smile and an easy answer, and in general my dining experience tends to always end up being stellar! Bonus points all around!)

Thank you for including just how much gelatine is in one of those little packs. Everytime I try a recipe with gelatine, I end up once again hitting Google (and frankly, that making me more reliant on my phone then I want to be - I've bitched enough about my electronic leash, it would be a shame to ruin my anti-tec cred) to get an actual measurement. I buy the stuff in little bulk bags at a 5th the price, and never HAVE an envelope of the stuff laying around.

Not for buying the mix (rarely do the blasted things work, and I'm even MORE bitter towards them since the celiac was diagnosed. GF mixes? Are almost all evil and vile. And expensive), not that at all.

But for making me feel slightly normal, knowing I'm not the only one who's been found squinting at a computer screen, pan in one hand, frantically trying to swipe the rewind button on the YouTube video with the other flour bedaubed digit trying to figure out how to accomplish some esoteric cooking feat that my mother failed to teach me. (I have an excellent mom. But cookingwise... she failed me. Alas. Which has lead to the weird inversion of taking phone calls from my mother, her hissing into the phone weird culinary questions as SHE frantically tries to serve her dinner guests.)

Wow. I think... I think I have finally found my 'Bridge Too Far' cooking moment. Don't get me wrong, back when I could still indulge (damn you celiac ridden guts!) I've been blessed enough to find some good places to have proper ramen. Rich, indulgent, wonderful. Maybe it's having to cook so much from scratch (I should say 'grind' really. That dratted celiac poking its annoying head up again - most of my recipes anymore start with 'pull out the flour mill') but I think... I think this is where my line goes. I will keep looking for a GF-Ramen source, because while I'm happy to track down oddball flours, have sourced my local meats, preserve my garden's bounty.... I think scrubbing the blood out of pigs feet is just past where I want to be.
Weirdly, I'm glad to know this. I'm game for cheesemaking, will get involved in brewing, do all sorts of things. It's nice to know where my limit hits. (Still, this looks amazing. Wonder if I can find someone who wants to make it FOR me?)

I'm surprised my favorite sweet buttermilk user-upper didn't make the list. Granted, I rather am 'stuck' with leftover buttermilk. A qt makes it's way onto my grocery list pretty much weekly, it's simply a staple in our home. But if you find you just HAVE to use some up quickly, buttermilk makes the most mind-blowing salted caramel sauce you could imagine. It adds such an amazing depth of tangy flavor to a wonderful sticky sauce that I use over cakes, waffles, icecream, amazing drizzled over fruit, and, well.

Straight out of the jar on a spoon is pretty awesome as well. More than a few 2am fridge wanders have found me, spoon in hand, pj's and fuzzy slippers lit from the fridge light, happily have a sweet sneak before heading back to bed.

Oh heck... you have forced me to A) buy one of the dratted pans finally (I've been tempted for almost a year, have had it in my cart a dozen times over, before backing away - heaven knows I have enough kitchen gadgets, but this puts me over the hump. Simply buying it to indulge in endless edge brownies just wasn't enough. But all edged pizza? Check please.) and B) Dang it. Now I REALLY have to figure out a good, chewy, thick, fryable gluten free dough. Because dang it, I will NOT be denied this joy. Celiac be damned, I've got to figure this out.

Completely pitiful to admit, but I have almost always gone with store-bought pudding. In a house where 95% of every meal is scratch made (not due to any high moral standards, alas. Food allergies and the simple fact I'm a cheap wench has meant that to keep the budget sane, I have to bite the bullet and scratch cook most of everything. So much so I even grind our grain for pity's sake. I'm a bonnet away from little house in the suburbs territory here) pudding has been my weakness, because nothing I ever made tasted like, well. Pudding I had as a kid. Love my mom, but she has never been much of a cook, so mostly packaged stuff as a child. This looks REALLY good - and if successful, I can finally break my husband & I's 3 cartons a week habit of Jello pudding! Thanks!

Normally, about 75% of our meat comes from a local butcher shop - and I wait until I get there to plan any meat-based meals based on what looks good that day. But between bad weather and having been sick for a bit, my husband (who really doesn't do the shopping, for reasons that will soon become evident) picked up meat for the week while out with his mom tonight at Sam's Club. For the 5th time, when asked to grab a small package of beef, no roasts, no eye of round steak cuts - again (we have now SIX packages of the ruddy things in the freezer, he keeps "oopsing") and yet again...

I have round hockey pucks, I mean "Eye of Round Steaks" that are a good inch or so thick. Somehow asking for round steak or sirloin ends up with him blindly grabbing "well, they ARE round" these dreadful things instead. I can cook a nice eye of round ROAST once in a while to slice thin for sandwiches - but I'm completely at a loss for ideas on using the steak cuts. No fat (but lovely grisle running down the centers of each) to make the most of in slow cooking. Too chewy/tough for quick - I'm at my wits end. 99% of the recipes I've found online call for cans of condensed soup or dried onion soup mixes - but because of celiac, those convenience items are right out. I refuse to waste them, and I CAN'T chuck them in the freezer. I've done that already and have more lurking waiting for a good recipe.

Help me make something tasty? And if you have any ideas on how to get my spousal unit to STOP BUYING THE DRATTED THINGS (sorry, sorry. I just feel like I'm entering into a loop of madness from the repetitive "Please don't buy, whatever you do, this" followed by yet another tray of these things.) short of installing some sort of electric shock delivering type device that goes off when he reaches for another package of the blasted things. Everything I've tried thus far ends up gray, fibrous, hockey pucks of doomy-doom-doom. Even dicing small has failed me.